Wednesday, 15 June 2016

This is how my last month has been going for me... I need a constant supply of coffee to keep me going. But, in saying that, in the past month we have done a lot on the renovation scene... Once I'm done I'll post some pictures to show you what I'm talking about... Though, I can tell you I'm sick to death of painting and I have about another 3 months worth to go (I'm painting the existing guttering black to match the new handrails)... 3 months because I'm taking my time in doing it all = less stress for me.

The Ex goes back to NZ this weekend, and as much as I like the guy, even love him some days... I'll be glad to have my house back to normal... it is weird how much extra work there is in having another body in the house.

In between doing renos it is the dreaded tax time again... I absolutely hate tax time... It drives me nuts as all I ever seem to do is pay out money... and this year I'm hoping like hell that I don't have a heap to pay out... so keep you crossables crossed for me.

It's been promising to rain here, and I hope it holds off until after I the guys come back next Wednesday and pick up the skip bin... finally getting rid of all the crap that we have stashed in the sheds... I can't wait for it to finally be done.

JOBS WE DID GET DONE...

Mostly the Ex, but I did help out on a fair bit of it.

Finish the front ramp rails... and paint

Covercrete the sides of the ramp in a blue to match the roof and railings

Replace the back veranda hand & step rails... and paint

Finish off the front veranda wall

Finish front veranda arcatrave

Replace existing bolt casing on my front gate (front veranda gate-- it's s huge wooden thing with a dragon head door knocker... I love it, but when the house moves the bolt get's stuck so I needed slightly bigger housing to keep it running smoothly

Put up new house numbers on the front fence... red numbers on a black board

Cut to size facing for my library shelves... when I install these the hardest part will be removing and putting back all the fricken books... maybe it will be a good time to cull some of them... or not... I hate getting rid of books.

Cut and install two missing pieces from the office desk

Clear out the gully in the back yard

Store all of the Ex's gear in the front shed... yes, even the ugly orange ute

Clean up some of the construction gear in the back yard

Sell some of the construction gear

Sell the tipper truck

Sell the ute

Sell the container (construction storage)

Remove broken aircon unit... (This is happening next week)

Replace sensor lights for switch version flood lights (also happening next week) We have too much wild life for just sensor lights.

Replace the existing shower heads in our two bathrooms.

Wash undersides of window coverings (on the outside of the house)

Fix leaking kitchen taps

Replace water filter

Fix tank over flow pipes (6 tanks)

Fix the hole in the town water (to house) pipe... it was under the concrete in the garage carport so it had to be dug up and fixed and the re concreted.

Fix backing on laundry sink tap

Move wall mounted TV from spare room to my room

Get pantry doors built and installed

Finish off pantry shelves trim

Replace kitchen cupboard handles (30)

Replace laundry cupboard handles (2)

Clean up around the dam area of yard

Clean up the burn up bin area

JOBS STILL TO DO...

Some will be done by me, but others will have to wait for the Ex to get back to Australia.

Wash the solar panels... building myself up to climb up on the roof in the next couple of days to attempt this... did I mention that I'm terrified of heights?

Finish pulling off wood slats around from underside of house (next time the Ex is over we'll be covering it in with colour bond corrugated iron to match the hand rails and the roof)

Paint the iron of the truck carport

Paintt the guttering around the house black

Paint around the door arcatraves

Build a latticework fence to separate the driveway from the house and garden.

Thursday, 9 June 2016

Don't you hate it... when you are trying to find a book and you can't remember the name?

MYSTERY BOOK: All I know about said book is that a guy lives with foster parents... they treat him badly and they lock him in the basement without food etc... Child services comes in and takes away the families real children... and they send the child service guy back for the fostered kid in the basement... I think the services guy ends up with the basement guy.

SOLUTION: I'm going through my kindle and then I'm looking up every book I've ever bought and I'm collecting all their Blurbs and putting them in files... long job, but will be worth it in the end... PS: I haven't found it yet.

Don't you hate it... when you can't remember the name of your books character that you really need for the next installment.

CHARACTER: He is the human that is linked to Phoenix in Sons Of Evenmore... he is one of the main characters in the next book and for the life of me I can't remember his name... Looks like I have a re read coming on.

SOLUTION: Find my notes to save a re read... mind you it looks like world war 3 in the office at the moment so a re read will probably be quicker.

Don't you hate it... when you have so much to do and no time to do it in, or people try to help and make it it far longer than it should be.

JOBS: Basically, I'm trying to de clutter my house and get rid of all surplus stuff. I'm also trying to fix all those little annoying things that no one ever has time to attend... my most important thing is to get my office and Library finished.... I have to nail on all the facing and stain it to match the rest of the office desk and then I can finish off the painting. I need to paint the inside of my house before I can get the flooring changed (by the time I've saved up for the hardwood flooring I'll hopefully have finished the painting) I figured it will be easier to paint before I think of new flooring... less chance of making a mess.

SOLUTION: While the Ex is here I'll get him to cut things to length and buy me the right nails and make sure I have all the paint and stain that I need to get the jobs done.

Don't you hate it... when you think you have something all figured out and then you find out you forgot something important.

PROBLEM: I lost the damn name of the paint I'm painting the interior of my house... and some bright spark painted over the name on the tin... Mind you, I did buy the paint a couple of years ago when the Ex built my library.

SOLUTION: Waste time on line looking through paint swatches until I find it... Solver Paint: MOUSE SA1-100/23-20B

Wednesday, 8 June 2016

As everyone knows... whenever I'm sick I have a tendency to fall back to my original story. The one that got me started in writing in the first place... In the beginning it was subbed at Silver Publishing... after they went bust... I subbed it to Wayward Ink Press, and got feedback saying it was too busy and I needed to pull it apart and reconstruct the first story into three... giving each couple their own story...

At the time I was like what the fuck... I really didn't want to reconstruct an already written story... I know in the years that have passed I have talked about doing it... but, just never got around to actually starting... With the 6 month hiatus I've had from writing I sat down and re read the story and finally saw what the people at Wayward Ink Press were talking about... so tentatively I've been writing up notes on how to do what was asked. I even wrote 4 chapters in the new storyline... I wanted to keep the bases of my original story, but tweak it enough so each couple has their time in the light. So now I have to change 1 X 40K novella into 3 X 40K novellas and still end up at the same place. More to the point have the first novella's prologue be the last novella's epilogue..

I have changed the series name to Admetus Gaea and the first story title to: The Gaean Prophecy... so basically I just reversed them... I have also realised doing it this way there are potentials for more stories... but here are the first three.

ADMETUS GAEA

The Gaean Prophecy

Broken Serenity

New World Alliance

I'm hoping that it doesn't take me long... I might even set it aside for my first for 2017 book. I'm trying to figure out the 22 I want to do for the challenge I had to postpone a year... sorry folks... I need to write what fires my imagination... I will just say that there will definitely one The Lines Of Marsden... and The Connelly Chronicles and the rest will be up in the air... for the Penny Brandon Challenge.

Tuesday, 7 June 2016

Okay, I know I've been gone for nearly a month, and there's not much I can say except... SORRY! I'm hoping things will start to settle down soon for me and things can get back to normal... I've just had so much going on in my life that I don't know where to start...

1) My mild cold turned into full-on bronchitis.

2) My family situation changed.... a lot... and I'm still waiting for my life to get back on track.

3) My brain took a little vacation without me. Vlad says he's got it secured away somewhere good, and hopefully soon he'll bring it back in one piece.

4) It's not just blogging that I've been slack on. I haven't written a word in months. I just had too much to deal with so something had to give... sadly it was my writing.

5) My Ex is here at the moment fixing up some stuff around my house... he's been here for 2 weeks and has 2 more to go... he'll always be my dearest friend, but bloody hell he can be annoying... though, I'm very grateful for the jobs he has done for me.

Other than being ill... I just haven't had the energy to do anything. I have been spring cleaning parts of the house on the days where I feel kind of okay... I'm trying to de clutter, but it's so hard when Emily is also packing to make her move to Brisbane in November of this year. so my house kind of looks like a war zone at the moment.

As per usual when ill... a whole passel of new story idea's come to take up residence in my head... when I sort them all out I will start talking about them to you all... maybe you will have ideas on which directions the stories should go.

The weather has been crazy here at the moment... In my neck of the woods we have been having wild wind and in my sister's place (NE Tasmania) they've had heavy rain... 10 inches in 24 hours... so she is trapped on her property as the bridge to town was looking a little worse for wear.

Okay... Now give me 2 more weeks of being a slack arse, and once the ex goes back to New Zealand... and Em is off to Melbourne... I'll only have Mum at home so I should seriously get back into my writing and get some more stories finished. I'll also try not to slack off on the blogs as much.